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What is 30under30?
30under30 is an Anthill initiative launched in early 2008 to encourage and promote entrepreneurship among young Australians. Each year, we invite our readers to nominate young Australian entrepreneurs deserving of recognition for their outstanding entrepreneurial endeavours. More.
Mick Spencer, ACT (b. 1990)
Name: Mick Spencer
Age: 22 (Born: May 1990)
Gender: Male
Territory: ACT
Known for: OnTheGo
OnTheGo manufactures customised sportswear for diverse sporting and fitness activities, and makes it available for government, not-for-profit, and corporate organisations. It’s a brand that’s philanthropic, adventurous, even risk-taking, and inextricably tied to the personality of its founder, the 22-year-old entrepreneur, avid cyclist and self-described ‘Young Life Champion’, Mick Spencer.
It was a childhood of physical limitations that set Spencer’s story in motion. Anyone who knows Spencer in business or in life has heard his story: severe short-sightedness at six months old; recurring heart problems at 11.
“That forced me to think outside the box of life,” he says, “to break rules and take risks to live.”
A gap-year stint as a camp volunteer in Hawaii inspired him to find his calling. In 2010, he started OnTheGo in his parents’ Canberra home with $150 and zero knowledge of the industry.
As Spencer has recounted about those beginnings: “What having no funding or help taught me was how to build a real business. I didn’t have huge marketing budgets so I had to figure out the best way to get my brand out there as much as possible.”
His original product was coffee cups, but it was with sportswear that his concept soon found its niche. OnTheGo has since grown to ten employees and an office in Canberra’s CBD. Since his last 30under30 win, OnTheGo’s sales have tripled, and products have become available in the United States as well as Australia-wide. All signs point to continued exponential growth.
As he perfects his business products and model, he continues to give back to the community, lecturing business students and mentoring startups, and sponsoring youth sporting initiatives for charitable causes. One might say that it’s an adventurous life/work balance that a certain Sir Richard would approve of.
“I have motivation for everything I touch in life, whether that be a 100km mountain bike endurance race, or to grow a company to be the next ‘Virgin’ of industries,” says Spencer.
“I am driven by creating a product that inspires people and having an effect on people’s lives, which I’m proud to say I do.”
Anthill asks: Mick Spencer, what has been your greatest ‘sales’ achievement?
Sharing my passion and being open to telling people what my vision is. This has attracted an amazing team of staff, suppliers, customers and anyone around me been attracted to what I was creating, therefore wanting to help with the growth of a dream.
Mick Spencer on Kochie’s Business Builders
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To check out the full list of Anthill’s 30under30 winners, click here.
